Evenings have different significance depending on your stage of life, don’t they? As a child, I vividly remember objecting to being sent to bed while it was still light in the summer!
Then there were many years of after-work sport, dancing and horse-riding.
Then there was wall-to-wall work, combined with caring for ageing parents, when evenings were a very short period of collapsing on the sofa before crawling up to bed.
Today, I love light evenings, but the darkness of winter can be oppressive and isolating. So, a new-term resolution is to get out for a post-dinner walk. It need only be 20-minutes, but I leave the house, see the world, gain perspective and have brief exercise, before settling down for the evening.
So, on Sunday night I left the house at 7pm for my post-dinner stroll. It was so quiet that I could have skipped down the centre of the road, though as soon as I thought that, sadly cars appeared.
Loneliness evaporated
One car stopped. It was a car dripping with luxury and sensuousness. Now, it’s been a few decades since an unknown man in such a vehicle has stopped to chat. So, this was a neighbour whose impeccable manners meant that he wouldn’t drive past without saying ‘hello’.
I stood in the road and we chatted. It’s that kind of village. And instantly the potential loneliness of evenings evaporated.
I walked the shortest possible route that could be called exercise, enjoying the song of a series of robins, seeing late summer flowers blooming in someone’s garden, and returned home to my favourite view: that of the oak tree from my kitchen window. All this took about half an hour, at a very leisurely pace.
Then, I sat down and watched world class athletes compete in the Ultimate Championships in Budapest. Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen completed the men’s 5,000 metres in 12.59 minutes. The irony of this comparison is not lost on me.
